Elementary, My Dear Natsuki
by DezoPenguin
Summary: A need for cheaper lodgings in Victorian London leads Natsuki Kuga to move in with a young woman...no prizes for guessing whom...whose unusual career opens up a world of mystery and secrets for her. AU, first in a series.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Some of you know I'm not really big on AU fics. Yes, I read them, and some have even become favorite stories with me, but I find that most even of the better ones fall into that category where the AU is interesting and well-written but the canon characters might as well be OCs that happen to have the names and appearances of more familiar faces_. _The balancing act between the original story and the new setting is a delicate one and more often than not doesn't work out._

_So why the heck, you ask, am I writing one, and worse yet, making it my first story in this particular fandom? Or even worse yet, making it as _Part One _of a _proposed six-or-seven-part series of short stories_??_

_Part of it, frankly, is because everything I might have to say about these characters _in_ their natural setting has already been written, and done much better than I could manage. There's some damned great ShizNat fics in this section. And part of it is because the idea just snuck up and bit me on the hind end and would not let go. And hey, the Mai franchise already has two _canon_ AU settings itself in Otome and HiME Destiny, right?_

_But hey, either I'll do a good job with it and you'll all be entertained, or I'll fall on my face and you'll all get to point and laugh...so you win either way!_

_Some notes:_

_1. While I've gleefully snapped up some of the characters' Otome-verse last names because they better fit the setting, these are definitely their HiME incarnations._

_2. I've willfully given London a larger and more thriving Japanese community than, so far as I know, existed in the 1890s. Similarly, while the idea of a mixed-race female Sherlock Holmes might provide fertile ground for an interesting exploration of gender and racial prejudice in Victorian England, these are issues that will be mostly glossed over for the sake of making the story work. You may assume that the infamous Fujino smile and the even more infamous Kuga Death Glare stifle such feelings before they have a chance to manifest._

_3. Likewise, while the speech patterns won't be completely modern, I'm not using the fully pseudo-Victorian speech that I employ for my gothic horror fiction. It's hard enough to write in character!_

_4. Bonus points for every "A Study in Scarlet" cameo or parallel that you spot!_

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My association with _her_ began in so ordinary, almost prosaic a fashion that I can scarcely believe it ever happened that way. Something that changed my life...no, changed _me_...in so many different ways should have been clearly marked out and labeled.

Fireworks, perhaps. A jubilee parade. Those would have been about right.

It didn't happen that way. Instead, it kind of snuck up on me. Life's like that, always doing its best to catch me by surprise.

_She's_ like that, too. Maybe that explains something.

I'd found myself in the late summer of 1898 confronted with a series of what you might call financial reverses. My father had apparently decided that nineteen years was long enough to support the child of his late mistress. For the past four years I'd had a nice arrangement going with the headmistress of the ladies' seminary I was supposed to be attending: she handed over three-fourths of the substantial sum she was getting for tuition, room, board, clothing, and a considerable allowance--to be fair, Gerhart Kruger was generous so long as it only required him to open his wallet instead of his heart--and in return stuck the remaining quarter in her pocket and allowed me to go to the devil in my own way. She didn't even have to forge glowing reports about how I was doing since no one ever asked.

The arrangement had suited us both nicely. Unfortunately, the money tree had shed its last leaf.

As you'd probably expect, a teenaged girl with a substantial stipend and a lack of oversight tended to get out of hand. It wasn't all luxury and free living; a good part of what I did _required_ money. Especially when I was younger, cash well spent had kept me safe when I hadn't yet developed the skills or the brains to do it myself.

I hadn't been a complete idiot, of course. I'd been saving here and there and had reinvested my capital. There were plenty of people in London who'd have killed in an eyeblink for an income of eleven shillings sixpence a day. For me, though, I needed to make a sharp change--down--in my living expenses.

The worst offender of the lot was that I'd been staying at a small private hotel, which offered comfort, reliability, and an army of efficient employees to take care of the concerns of day-to-day living. That had to change; I needed rooms at a reasonable rate.

I'd been bemoaning this fact to Mai, the owner and cook at my favorite Japanese restaurant. Actually, it's pretty much my only Japanese restaurant, since I prefer Western cooking. Still, I like to at least pay lip service to my cultural heritage, and Mai's food is damned good. Besides, she's one of my few genuine friends.

"Do you know, you're the second person to mention that to me today," Mai replied. "Just at lunchtime a lady was saying how it was too bad that she couldn't find someone to go in with her on some rooms she'd found."

A short, dark head popped up from behind the counter.

"You should go see her!"

"Mikoto! If you have time to chatter, go take this order to the third table."

"Yes, Mai," the girl caroled and scooped up the tray of ramen bowls Mai handed her. As always, Mikoto ignored the hint of chastisement from her adopted sister. From what I knew, Mikoto had been sent to England to live with her brother only to find him missing or dead. She'd have ended up on the streets, but Mai had taken her in. For all her tragic past, Mikoto always had a smile on her face whenever I saw her. Then again, I didn't know where she'd come from, so maybe living with Mai and all the ramen she could eat was a happy step up?

"Actually, Natsuki, Mikoto has a good point. Maybe you should look into this. I could introduce you."

Mai was like that. Venting your feelings to her could be dangerous, because she'd try to fix whatever was wrong.

"I don't know. Sharing lodgings with someone else, always tripping over their stuff or getting woken up when they crash around at odd hours, the prying questions as to what I'm up to..."

Less than impressed with my complaints, Mai giggled.

"You just don't want to have anyone else around, Natsuki. You're so private, sometimes."

"Afraid they'll steal your lingerie collection?" Mikoto chirped as she came back.

"Mikoto!"

I slurped soup while my ears burned. Kids could always find a way to embarrass a person. Mai, on the other hand, had hit the nail squarely on the head. My business was, oddly enough, my business. I say 'oddly' because the bulk of humanity seems to disagree with the concept. Prying and gossip were a cottage industry.

Still, she was right in another way, too. If I wanted reasonable comfort, then the odds were I'd have to end up sharing lodgings with someone. And when I thought about it, this person Mai had mentioned might be better suited than a random stranger. After all, at the least we had one thing in common. And Mai had called her a "lady" rather than a "woman," which meant something.

"All right, Mai," I gave in. "Go ahead and introduce us."

"Great! Turn around, then."

I blinked in surprise, then turned around in my chair. Standing just inside the door was a tall woman dressed in, of all things, a traditional Japanese kimono in a pale violet shade with a wisteria pattern. In contrast to the outfit, her hair was light brown, nearly blonde, and her eyes out-and-out red--not even like an albino's, but as a positive quality, crimson the way mine were green.

"Miss Viola," Mai called. "Welcome back. I'm surprised to see you twice in one day."

"Well, I still haven't settled into a new home, so a good meal isn't easy to come by. My hotel doesn't run to Japanese food." Her voice had a gentle lilt to it.

"We can certainly help with that, and maybe also with your other problem."

"_Ara_, you've found a fellow-lodger?"

"Exactly! Miss Shizuru Viola, this is Miss Natsuki Kuga."

"Hey," I offered.

"Be polite, Natsuki."

"I'm pleased to meet you," I grumbled, extending my hand to the newcomer. Those eerily red eyes looked me over while she shook it. Obviously, she was noting the fact that I was dressed in a man's shirt, trousers, and boots instead of proper female dress, though I was soon to find out that there was more than just the surface she was seeing.

"Likewise...Natsuki."

I was surprised that she'd jumped to a first-name basis. Was it because Mai had addressed me that way? Her smile didn't quite match the faint teasing tone of her voice, either; it was placid, even serene.

"Natsuki was just saying how she was looking for someplace to stay at a fair price," Mai said.

"It's certainly that. The rooms I found are a suite in Baker Street, very nicely furnished, but a shade too expensive for a single tenant. For two, however, the rates are quite fair. That should appeal to your German frugality. Though I trust you don't carry on firearms practice indoors? Cigarette smoke is one thing, but I do think gunpowder should be confined to tea within the house."

"Wait, how did you--?"

An impish trace invaded the smile.

"The bone structure of your face suggests the Germanic, though there's always immigration to consider. The rest, your hand told me." She lifted mine. "See? Traces of powder on the backs of the fingers, and nicotine stains on the tips."

"I'm trying to cut down," I muttered, embarrassed. Smoking wasn't ladylike, which is why so many ladies who weren't satisfied with the roles urged on them by society smoked. I hadn't been making a political statement when I'd started the habit, though, just trying to look rebellious in a juvenile way. Hence the embarrassment.

The masculine clothing and the practice with handguns, on the other hand, were just practicality. A girl's got to look out for herself, after all.

Still and all, it surprised me, and worried me a little, that in a couple of quick glances Shizuru had noticed so much about me. I didn't like people prying around in my life, and it looked like this woman didn't even _have_ to pry to find the answers.

On the other hand, she _hadn't_ asked the obvious questions. She hadn't asked why I preferred male dress (in style, at least; I was making no attempt at disguising my actual gender) or why I was practicing with revolvers. They were things I'd expect someone to want to know about a fellow lodger, certainly more significant than an ethnic background.

The mask-like smile told me that this was someone who understood secrets. She might notice more than most people, but she wouldn't necessarily tell what she knew or make a nuisance of herself.

Better that, I thought, than a busybody, even one too dim to be more than an annoyance.

"Baker Street, you said?"

"_Ara_, so you are interested!"

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, and all that."

"Then after dinner shall we go see the rooms and find if they are to your liking?"

"That suits me," I agreed.

The rooms at 221B turned out to be everything I could have hoped for: two bedrooms and a single large, airy sitting-room which frankly offered as much comfort as I was getting at my hotel. The landlady was a redheaded Scotswoman who gave the lie to all the calumnies directed at her nationality about meanness over money, given how reasonable the rental terms were. Some of that was due to Shizuru, whose deft flattery put a blush to the lady's cheek. I kept my mouth shut so as not to spoil it. We signed the lease on the spot and moved in the next day.

The first several weeks with my new fellow lodger seemed to bear out my confidence in making the move. Shizuru never once asked a single question about my activities, even when they required me to leave at odd hours or on one fairly memorable occasion when I arrived in a disheveled, mud-spattered state after I'd had to convince several gentlemen that my unusual clothing choices didn't go hand-in-hand with a taste for unusual sex acts. On the contrary, she said hello when I came back, goodbye when I left, and over meals would chat pleasantly about politics or the latest headlines in the papers or a novel she was reading or anything else except our personal lives.

There was a flip side to that, though, and it was that for all her care not to invade my privacy, she was equally reticent about herself. Strangely, rather than being comforted by that, I found myself provoked. Maybe it was because I already had one mystery in my life and didn't need any others, or maybe it was just that I had more natural curiosity than I was willing to admit to. For whatever reason, the riddle that was Shizuru Viola fascinated me.

The most obvious thing about her was that she was far more in touch with the Japanese side of her heritage than I was, despite--or maybe because--her appearance could pass for European. She tended to wear kimono around the house and about a third of the time when she went out. About half of her books--and there were a _lot_ of those--were in Japanese, and the writing desk included both a pen set and brush and ink for calligraphy, which she would use interchangeably. Her hand was exquisitely beautiful in both Latin and Japanese characters, to the point where I understood for the first time how calligraphy could be considered art and actually felt a prick of shame at my own careless scrawl. And then there was the tea.

I have never in my life met someone who was as devoted to tea as Shizuru. She took to it as some people took to tobacco or to alcohol; it was always present, a prop to reading or writing or just sitting and thinking. Generally it was green tea drunk from a handleless cup, but it went beyond that. At least once every couple of days--maybe more, since I wasn't always around for it--she would perform the actual tea ceremony with a grace and serenity that made it seem like our very English sitting room was suddenly transported to medieval Edo. That wasn't all, though; because each day she insisted upon the ordinary English teatime being observed and at that time she would preside over the tray with all the elegance of the lady of the manor. A china pot of Assam or Darjeeling and the various additions of milk, sugar, or lemon were handled with the same respect for tradition as she wielded the whisk for the Japanese ceremony.

Personally, I preferred coffee, which always seemed to amuse her. I got the idea that lot of what I did amused Shizuru. Now and again she'd give voice to it and tease me about something, but always gently and without malice. It always annoyed me at the time, but in its way it was almost endearing. I'd never had someone to share the kind of casual intimacy that allowed for friendly teasing. And yet it was an intimacy based entirely around superficial things, since if she'd tried to draw closer through more significant confidences I'd have just pushed her away. I often wondered if she knew that and did it on purpose, or if it was just her way.

The part of Shizuru Viola that most fascinated me, however, was the question of what, precisely, it was that she did. She was undeniably a lady by manner, so it was theoretically possible that she "did" nothing--that is, she lived off an income from family funds. Yet I couldn't bring myself to believe that. For one thing, she had callers of a type so widely varied that I couldn't make sense of it. A caller might have the sober respectability of a City man, the polished elegance of the gentry, the scruffy wear and tear of a tradesman, or the downright disreputable look of the kind of people you usually never saw five feet beyond the East End. There was one woman who appeared no less than three times, a blonde around our age dressed expensively and fashionably, with a perpetually sour expression on her face. There was no pattern to these calls; sometimes she'd get two or three in a day and sometimes I wouldn't see a single person for a week.

Sometimes she would go out. Occasionally it would be with one of the callers, other times alone. From what I could tell, though, she spent most of her time in our rooms, much more than I did. Fundamentally she was a lazy person, but also a perfectionist. When she acted, she did so with precision and to excel, but only when she had to, or so it seemed.

Like I said, a mystery.

To this day, I still don't know what made her cross the line. Maybe it was even the reason she gave me, though I doubt it. No, she'd noticed my curiosity about her--she couldn't miss it, given my general lack of subtlety and the fact that Shizuru was Shizuru--and had decided for whatever reason to give me answers. Maybe she'd had it planned for some time, and the letter gave her the opportunity. Or maybe when the letter arrived the whole idea came to her at once. Shizuru's "hows" could be almost as impenetrable as her "whys" when she wanted them to be.

It was in the early morning when the letter arrived, hand-delivered by a messenger boy rather than in the past. I was still working on my second cup of coffee, almost ready to join the human race, while Shizuru was well into her after-breakfast tea. That it was important she confirmed at once by setting the teacup aside while reading. She frowned slightly as she took in the information, then looked up at me with a speculative glint in her eyes.

"This is troublesome," she announced. "It seems that I have to go to the waterfront. That's a dangerous place for a woman alone." After a slight pause she added, "Would Natsuki be able to come with me?"

"What?" I responded brilliantly.

"Natsuki is a dangerous person, isn't she? I would feel much safer if Natsuki were beside me."

"You want me to be your bodyguard while you run some errand?"

Shizuru smiled at me.

"That's exactly it."

My first instinct was to say something along the lines of "Why should I?" That was mostly the lack of caffeine talking, though, because I realized right away that this was a perfect chance to learn more about my mysterious fellow-lodger.

"I guess there's no helping it," I said. "We can't let you run around getting yourself into trouble."

She rose to her feet.

"I'll be ready in ten minutes, then. A hansom would, I think, be advisable."

I ran a brush through my hair to get out the worst of the knots and put on a jacket whose sole purpose was to provide pockets for my revolvers. I kind of envied the American "gunslingers" from the dime novels who could just go out with their guns openly strapped on. I went downstairs and managed to flag down a cab just in time for Shizuru to appear on the walk beside me wearing a lavender walking dress, her hair pinned up beneath a hat set at a jauntily fashionable angle. When she'd said ten minutes, she'd actually meant it. We climbed in, she gave the driver the address, and we were off.

"So," I said, "mind telling me why we're off to the seedy side of town?"

"_Ara_, is Natsuki interested in me?"

"I just don't want to embarrass myself when we get there by not knowing what's going on," I denied. As an excuse it at least had the value of being true, just not the complete truth.

"That would be annoying, wouldn't it? This is a professional call."

The cab wheels rattled loudly over the cobblestones.

"Professional?"

"I make my living as a private consulting detective."

_Wait, what was that?_

"Okay, private detective I understand"--if not quite able to picture Shizuru in the role--"but I'm having trouble with the 'consulting' part."

"The majority of my cases come to me at second hand, as it were. Private inquiry agents and the official force alike hire me when they're out of their depth, or sometimes they refer clients on to me directly. I'd say that only one in ten cases comes to me without some intervening agency, so in that way I am a consultant."

"I see."

I still had trouble with the idea of Shizuru as a detective. The image of her crawling about on her hands and knees examining footprints through a lens kept refusing to focus in my mind, it was so outlandish.

"So how does that work?" I asked. "I mean, what is it that you do that they can't?" That came out ruder than I'd wanted it to, but she didn't appear to take offense.

"Observation and deduction."

"Oh?"

"Does Natsuki remember when we first met?"

"It was kind of hard to forget."

"That's the sort of thing that I do professionally. I have a lot of specialized knowledge which I apply to the facts. Most often the official force can observe the data, but just doesn't draw the correct conclusions. In that situation I can give them answers without leaving our rooms. If not, then I can generally tell where I need to look for the missing details and either get them myself or send someone else to complete the puzzle."

"So basically, you're smarter than they are."

Shizuru chuckled.

"That's rather a...direct way of putting it."

"But that's what it comes down to, right?"

"I suppose so," she allowed. "Although, I would rather say that I bring a different approach to a problem which can sometimes provide solutions when the typical investigative methods cannot."

I decided that remark would have made more sense if I knew what the "typical investigative methods" actually were. Given how much unsolved crime there was in London, it certainly couldn't hurt.

"And you're able to make a living at this, huh?"

"I would hope so, if Natsuki is not to have to pay all of next month's rent."

"Idiot," I growled, which was, honestly, the only rational response when she started teasing me like that. "So, what is it this time that has someone sending for you instead of coming to visit?"

"Murder, according to the letter, and under circumstances that have left Scotland Yard baffled."

I looked her full in the eyes. Unfortunately, this time she wasn't teasing.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: It irks me that Reito apparently has no convenient Westernized last name from Otome that I can hijack for his character._

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The hansom cab deposited us opposite the Rotherhithe warehouse of Vamberry and Son, Wine Merchants. A particularly unpleasant specimen of derelict gave Shizuru a look; I shot him one back and he withered under the impact, slinking back into the shadowy corner he'd emerged from.

Shizuru smiled at me.

"_Ara_, it was a good thing that I brought Natsuki along."

I decided not to dignify that with a response. Instead I asked, "Is that the place?"

"Yes, Vamberry and Son. Chief Inspector Kanzaki should be waiting for us."

"Should I know anything about him?"

"He and Inspector Armitage are the brightest of the Scotland Yarders. He's ambitious and has, I think, goals beyond his current post. Thus he consults me to make certain that no failures are on his record."

"I hate him already."

Shizuru chuckled, covering her mouth with her hand.

"Natsuki _is_ feeling protective today."

I snorted. Really, this woman!

We crossed the street to the warehouse, then around the corner to a side door where a constable was waiting.

"Sorry, ma'am," he touched the brim of his helmet to Shizuru. "Afraid I can't let you inside."

"I'm Shizuru Viola. Chief Inspector Kanzaki is expecting me, I think?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am. Sorry about that. Go right in." He opened the door and stepped out of the way. She stepped towards the door; I didn't. The constable glanced from me to her and back again.

"Natsuki is with me," she declared. "Don't worry; she isn't as much of a suspicious character as she looks."

Gee, thanks.

The invitation settled one point clearly enough. Whatever her reasons for wanting me along, the excuse she'd given was just an excuse. There was no way that Kanzaki or one of his flunkies couldn't fetch Shizuru a cab and see her safely on her way before she fell foul of the harbor's natural predators. Was it just Shizuru's way of sharing her life's work with me without having to come right out and say so? And did my curiosity about her really extend to watching her investigate a murder?

Since I found my feet moving forward almost of their own accord, I supposed that it did.

The warehouse was cavernous and dim, with too few windows and skylights to illuminate it well. Crates and casks were piled everywhere, making things even more obscure and creating a labyrinth out of what had been a large open space. A few seconds of it was enough for me to all but forget the sunny morning outside and be enmeshed in a gloom better suited to a sensation novel. The hairs at the back of my neck prickled, and my hands slid down almost by reflex to a point where they could draw and fire in an instant.

Thankfully, there was a difference between being ready for violence and plunging into it or else I'd have made a damned fool of myself when we came upon the crime scene. In the back of the building near the dock side, five people were clustered around a scene dominated by the fallen form of a sixth. Two of the five were uniformed constables, while a third was dressed like a workman, in his fifties with a square face and a beard shot through with gray.

The remaining two men stood by the body. One was tall, dark, and handsome as the fortunetellers say and while the cut of his clothes was utilitarian I could recognize the quality. His companion was a couple of inches shorter though still above average, with a long, horselike face, a shock of unruly orangey-blond hair, and clothes that matched the hair in their generally rumpled condition.

"Good morning, Reito," Shizuru said, making me think: _Reito?_ Though remembering how she'd started using my first name within a couple of sentences, that might just have been her way. "Sergeant," she added to the rumpled man. Yes, Kanzaki would be the smooth, polished half of the set. Too bad it wasn't the other way around; it might have given him some character.

"Shizuru. Thank you for coming." His voice fit his appearance: smooth, cultured, without any discernable regional accent. His gaze flicked meaningfully towards me.

"May I introduce my associate, Miss Natsuki Kuga? Natsuki, Chief Inspector Kanzaki and Sergeant Tate."

"A pleasure, Miss Kuga," Kanzaki said with a polite nod of his head.

"Thanks," I remarked, trying for some basic civility. There really wasn't any reason that I could see to have a hissy fit over the corpse. Kanzaki was just one of those people who rubbed me the wrong way.

"I have to warn you, the sight is fairly gruesome," he said, then stepped out of the way with Tate to give us a good look at what was on the floor.

The brain can play weird tricks when faced with a sudden shock. The first thing mine fastened on when I saw the body wasn't the face or the death wound but the impression it made as a garish splash of color in the dim light and drab wood hues of the stored goods: the bottle-green coat and patterned trousers stood out even more because the dead man was sprawled at the base of a row of casks. There was no avoiding it for too long, though. The side of his head had been stove in with savage force, literally crushing the skull. Since the head was turned to the side in death the face was horribly distorted, particularly the right eye since the socket had been partially broken open. I got the impression of fleshy features and a bulbous nose.

My gorge rose, but I controlled it. Violent death wasn't an unfamiliar sight to me. This one was just especially unpleasant and emphasized by the drab scenery. I noticed Shizuru's eyes on me; was she judging my reaction?

"A single, enormously powerful blow, I think," she said.

"I think the police surgeon will verify that at the autopsy. A strong man with something like a leaded cane or iron pry-bar."

"And probably struck from behind and left where he fell, to judge by the blood spatter on those casks." She looked at where a long smear of red crossed two of the casks, then frowned slightly. "I see a gold wedding band on his finger. Would you turn the body?"

Kanzaki nodded, then glanced at Tate. The sergeant crouched down and rolled the corpse over and Shizuru, showing no hesitation, went through the victim's pockets.

"He has a gold pocket watch and chain, a wallet containing...two ten-pound notes, a coin purse with three pounds, two shillings fourpence, and a silver card case."

Apparently, robbery was not the motive. Shizuru opened the card case.

"Wilson Scott Vamberry, Purveyor of Fine Wines and Spirits, with an address in the Tottenham Court Road, though you mentioned that in your letter."

"Mr. MacLeod identified him. He found the body when he arrived for work this morning."

We all turned towards the man who was standing over by the constables.

"The warehouse foreman," Tate supplied. "Always opens up at seven each morning."

Kanzaki beckoned to MacLeod, who came over.

"Shizuru, this is Robert MacLeod."

"And you discovered Mr. Vamberry's body?" she asked him.

His eyes flicked from the inspector to her and back, as if trying to decide what Shizuru's role in the investigation was. Since she obviously had the police's authority backing her, he shrugged, then answered.

"That's so." Unlike our landlady, his accent was fairly broad. "I always come in at seven every morning. I unlocked the side door and called out to the watchman, but Fulke didn't answer. I was afraid as maybe something had happened to him, so I started taking a look around, calling now and again. Then I came across this, so I left at once and got the police." He waved his hand towards the corpse, indicating what he meant by "this."

"And you saw no one else in or around the warehouse?" Kanzaki asked.

"No I did not," MacLeod bit off sharply. I got the idea there was a "Don't you think I would have said so if I had, ye daft fool?" on the end of that in his mind. I liked him.

"Did Mr. Vamberry often visit the warehouse?" Shizuru asked.

"Occasionally he did, though I'd never known him to do so at night. These days he mostly left work here to me," he said with pride, "or he sent his son or Mr. Clark. Again, that would be during the day, not the nighttime, though. What would be the point o' doing business here at night? Ye kin barely see enough as it is." His accent got thicker as he got more agitated.

"I presume that the warehouse is kept locked at night?"

"Aye."

"Who had keys?"

"I did, and Mr. Vamberry, and Mr. Clark."

"What about the watchman?" interjected Kanzaki.

"Fulke? Oh, aye, he had a key to the side door, but not to the padlocks on the cargo doors."

"Mr. Vamberry's keys are missing," Shizuru pointed out.

"As is the watchman."

"Mr. MacLeod, you said that the door was unlocked when you arrived this morning. Was that only the side door, or were the doors to the loading dock open as well?"

"We found them barred and locked," Tate provided helpfully.

"I didna' lock them today, though I do every night before leaving," MacLeod said.

"I see."

Shizuru pressed her palms together in a thoughtful or perhaps prayerful attitude.

"You mentioned a Mr. Clark. Who is he?"

"Mr. Clark is the firm's junior partner."

"I see. Thank you, Mr. MacLeod. You've been a great help. Now, as a last question, what can you tell me about the watchman?"

MacLeod pursed his lips.

"Ye think that Fulke did this?"

"We need to know as much as we can about the people involved. Please answer Miss Viola's question."

"He's been with the firm for over twenty years. He was an ordinary worker, originally, but four years ago a stack of crates fell over on him and near crushed his leg. Ye canna go shifting loads around wi' only a pair o' strong arms, so they found him a place as the watchman."

"What does he look like?"

"He's near on my age, dark hair, clean-shaven. He'd be six feet, 'cept his leg's a'crooked, so he's always hunched up." Ignoring Kanzaki, he turned to Shizuru and added, "He didn't do this, miss. A lot o' firms'd jest turn out a man as had gotten hurt, but Mr. Clark made sure he had work. Fulke'd never even say a harsh word for Vamberry and Son, not even the way a fellow would in passing, if ye know what I mean."

Shizuru nodded.

"I do. Although all too often, people end up causing pain to what they love. Thank you, Mr. MacLeod. You can go now, unless the Inspector has any more questions for you?"

Kanzaki shook his head.

"No, that's all. Make sure you take down his direction, Sergeant, and then see about having the body removed to the morgue. I'm sure the company will want to be able to get back to work tomorrow."

Tate, MacLeod, and the constables headed off to see to the arrangements, leaving us alone with Kanzaki.

"Well, Shizuru, I'm sure you see what I meant in my letter?"

She favored him with that placid smile of hers.

"Oh, yes."

"If the money and valuables were gone, we'd say the watchman robbed him and ran off. If nothing was missing, then we'd say he had some quarrel with Vamberry, or Vamberry caught him pilfering, so again the watchman killed him and ran off. But to take the keys and nothing else? That doesn't make any sense--in such a simple scenario."

So the pretty face could think a little.

"Oh, it's much more complicated than that," Shizuru agreed. "Although maybe not, in another way."

"You enjoy being enigmatic."

"Don't you, Reito? But I'll give you a hint. The evidence of the third cask is conclusive." She pointed to the one she meant, next to the blood-spattered pair.

"The third cask? We didn't find anything strange about it."

"Yes, that's what I thought." She smiled up at him. "Shall we go, Natsuki?"

We left Kanzaki staring thoughtfully at the cask, his brow furrowed. I'd have taken more satisfaction in Shizuru putting one over on the guy if I'd had the slightest idea what she was talking about. I really, really hate being the dumbest one in the room.

"So what was that about?"

"_Ara_, Natsuki _is_ curious today."

"I--" Damn. "Well, if you're going to talk about this stuff in front of me, it's only natural that I listen."

"As Natsuki enjoys detective stories, perhaps I should wait to explain things until the end?"

I made a note never to leave my magazines sitting out where Shizuru could see them.

"You told Tall, Dark, and Annoying."

"Natsuki has the same hint I gave Reito."

"Yeah, but he can actually look at the casks to see what you meant." I stopped for a second. "Wait...Shizuru, you never went near the casks. How did you get a chance to see whatever it was?"

She shook her head.

"No, as I told him, there was nothing to see. I could tell that from where I was."

"You're not making any sense."

"Natsuki, it didn't take a close-up inspection to see that nothing was there."

I groaned.

"Okay, that's a point."

We left the warehouse, passing the constable on guard.

"I wonder if there's a cab stand around here."

"Before that, we need to talk to Natsuki's friend."

"My what?" I asked, but she was already in motion, crossing the street towards where we'd been left by the cab, gliding along gracefully as if the dirt and filth couldn't touch her. I scampered after Shizuru, feeling slightly ridiculous as I did, and realized that she was heading right for the corner where the beggar had been sitting. He was still there.

"Excuse me," Shizuru said, "but may I have a word with you?"

He looked up at her, confusion plain in his bloodshot eyes. He occasionally approached nicely-dressed ladies, in the hope they'd be feeling charitable towards a poor soul. They didn't approach him. I could almost see the thoughts working through his mind as he tried to figure things out.

"Wot are ya, some kind o' mission shill?" he spat through broken teeth. I couldn't really blame him. The sort of charity that came with a pious certainty that one was fundamentally better than the recipient wouldn't have appealed to me, either. Too damn many "good works" were done for the sake of the doer's pride instead of someone else's benefit.

"I certainly hope not," Shizuru told him. "Were you here last night?"

"Wot's it to ya?"

"It could be a half-crown to you." She showed him the color of her money, taking the coin from her reticule. His eyes lit up like he'd just stumbled on a dragon's hoard. Which he probably had; the half-crown was likely more money than passed through his hands in a week.

"I was here." He reached for the coin, but Shizuru pulled her hand back.

"First, tell me what you saw over at Vamberry and Son."

He sighed.

"Fine. I was sleepin' there in th' alley, when I gets woken up by a cab. Don't get so many o' them at night. So's I takes a look out. A man gets out and goes around to th' side door. I figure, so what, so I goes back ter sleep. But later, a wagon comes along, big clattering thing, and th' next thing ya know, they's goin' up ter the big doors and loadin' it full o' stuff, bold as brass."

"Do you know what time that was?"

"Does I looks like a gent wot wears a watch?" He wheezed with laughter.

"Well, then, could you describe the men or the wagon?"

"No bleedin' way. They weren't showin' lights, if ya knows what I means, so's I kept me head down like a good boy and crept back ter th' alley so as I couldn't be seen."

"I see. Thank you very much." She gave him the coin, and his face lit up happily. He scuttled back, and we headed up the street in search, presumably, of a cab.

"Theft?" I asked. "Or maybe smuggling, contraband goods hidden in with Vamberry's legitimate shipments? But you knew it; you were expecting it. That's why you talked to that man."

"Yes, that's right."

"But how? Is it that cask thing? Did that tell you?"

Shizuru smiled at me.

"Now Natsuki is beginning to understand."

"The only thing I'm beginning to understand is why you're able to make money doing this." She clearly saw things that I was missing, and that talent seemed like something worth paying for.

She tipped her head to the side as if trying to see me from a new angle.

"Truly? It isn't obvious?"

I flushed red, embarrassed. Did she have to make me feel like a _complete_ idiot?

"I see that something was off with the cask, which told you that people had been moving stuff around. That I understand. What I don't see is what was wrong in the first place."

"It was the bloodstain. When the murderer killed Vamberry the blow splashed cast-off blood across the casks. But the third cask had no bloodstains, though by the pattern on the second cask the spatter should have continued. That told me that the third cask hadn't been there at the time of the murder. Either it had been put there later, or more likely one had been removed and this put in its place."

"Why is that more likely?"

"Well, no legitimate work would have been done after the owner's murder, and criminals would have no reason to put a cask in an empty space, but they might well steal a cask and put another there so as to disguise the importance of the missing one. Even if the gap is noticed, it will be where the new cask was supposed to be, confusing the issue as to what has been taken."

"I get it! If it was smuggling, the police would think, for example, that the goods were hidden inside a Dutch cargo for John Doe instead of a French cargo for Richard Roe and waste their time investigating completely innocent people. And they had to take out the cask because they know the murder would provoke a police search which might turn up something important."

"Now Natsuki is starting to understand," Shizuru said, her smile returning.

"And that's why they took Vamberry's keys! They had to unlock the loading dock because the cask wouldn't fit out the side door, and then they locked it up again for the same reason you already said, to disguise the fact that something had been moved," I continued, suddenly carried away by the chain of ideas. Damn it, but this stuff was actually interesting. I'd almost call it entertaining, if it weren't for the guy laying back in that warehouse with his skull cracked open. "Fulke! He was the inside man for the ones in the wagon, so he could open the side door and let the other thieves or smugglers into the warehouse."

"Well...we'll see about that."

"No?" I said, regretting immediately that I wasn't able to keep the disappointment from my voice.

"It might be, but we would be getting ahead of ourselves. Perhaps we'll know better when we meet the rest of the players in our murder drama."

She caught sight of a cab and raised her arm; the four-wheeler stopped almost at once. I'd have stopped too for someone dressed like her in this district. The address she gave would take us back towards home, but not to Baker Street. Instead, we were off to the Tottenham Court Road, and the offices of Vamberry and Son.


	3. Chapter 3

Vamberry and Son, wine-merchants, had a kind of elderly formality about it, a fine old building with a creeping decay around the corners that rather than making it look decrepit just lent it character. It looked like it ought to be part of a Dickens novel, and yet to judge by what Shizuru had said, murder had its roots here. I was reminded again of how a facade of respectability could hide secrets as corrupt as anything in Whitechapel or Seven Dials.

A dapper young man in dark trousers and vest, the whiteness of his shirt almost gleaming, greeted us with a smile.

"Pardon me, but may I speak with the proprietors?" Shizuru asked, extending a calling card which she took from a little case in her reticule.

"I'm afraid that Mr. Vamberry isn't here this morning, ma'am, and Mr. Clark--"

Another young man, this one with sandy hair and a trim moustache, stepped out of the back of the premises.

"Hawkins, where the deuce is the old man this--" he began, then stopped short as he caught sight of our presence. "Beg pardon, ladies. Didn't mean to interrupt."

"These ladies are here to speak with your father, sir," Hawkins took the opportunity to say. I remembered that MacLeod had mentioned that the dead man had had a son; apparently this was he. Shizuru's card was passed over and Vamberry read it curiously. He opened his mouth to speak, but apparently thought better of what he'd been about to say and closed it.

"Would you come this way, please, Miss Viola, Miss--?"

"My associate, Miss Kuga."

"Miss Kuga."

We followed him through the door from the shop premises into the firm's office. A side door took us into what looked like a clerk's chambers.

"Now, Miss Viola, if you would be so kind as to tell me what, precisely, is a 'private consulting detective' and what one has to do with my father, I would be much obliged." His hackles were up, suggesting that it was to avoid making a scene in front of the staff that he had invited us out back. But then again, if this was his office, then perhaps he, too, was "one of the staff" in some way.

"Mr. Vamberry, we've just come from this firm's warehouse in Rotherhithe," Shizuru told him gently. "I'm afraid that we have sad news for you. Your father, Mr. Wilson Vamberry, has died."

"What? My God, that's not possible! What kind of a sick joke are you people playing?"

My hackles rose at the suggestion, but I could understand as well. Shizuru remained calm and her manner sympathetic.

"I'm very sorry, but it's the truth."

"But it's not possible, I tell you. Father was in the pink of health!"

Shizuru hung her head.

"I understand, but...that relates to your other question. We are assisting the police in making inquiries into the circumstances. I'm sorry that there's no easy way to put this, sir, but it is a matter of murder."

"Good God!" The color had been starting to rise in his face, but it drained away entirely. Trembling, he gripped the edge of the desk for support. "This must be some kind of mistake. An accident--?"

Shizuru shook her head.

"It was a violent attack, Mr. Vamberry. There is no other possible explanation."

"Good God," he reported. He wobbled slightly and sagged into his chair. "Forgive me, I--this news..."

"Of course," Shizuru said gently. I wondered if it was all an act on Vamberry's part. He seemed sincere enough, but if he'd just murdered his father, he'd be certain to feign grief, wouldn't he?

"This will kill Mother," he murmured, then blanched at the unfortunate implications of what he had said. Shizuru chose to take his mind off it by pressing on with her questions.

"Mr. Vamberry, can you think of any reason why your father would be at the warehouse last night?"

"Last night? Good heaven, no. He almost never visited the warehouse at all these past few years, and certainly not at night. He hasn't dealt directly with issues of shipping and storage since I began work at the firm."

"So that would be one of your duties?"

Vamberry nodded.

"Yes, on occasion. Or else he would have Mr. Clark deal with it, in matters requiring a partner's direct authority. Father principally dealt with sales and similar affairs as well as the overall management of the business."

"And your own duties?"

"Principally as clerk and record-keeper." He indicated the room with an idle wave of his hand.

"In that capacity, then, you would know if the company is doing well?"

"Yes, it's quite healthy, and has been for the past several years."

"And there have been no recent or unexpected losses?"

"No, not at all. Income has been steady and the firm thriving. There was certainly nothing there to prompt...I mean..."

Shizuru nodded.

"I understand, Mr. Vamberry, and we've imposed upon you enough. If we could speak to Mr. Clark now?"

"Yes. Yes, of course. I'll see if--" He paused suddenly as his head snapped up. "Mr. Clark! I'd almost forgotten it, but he and Father had an awful row just before lunch-time yesterday!"

"What was it about?"

"I don't know; it was behind closed doors so all that I could hear were their raised voices without making out any words. Even so, it went on for nearly a quarter of an hour."

"Were these rows common?"

"No, not at all. Both are very even-tempered men, and have always gotten on well together." I noted his use of the present tense. "As I said, the business is thriving; I can't imagine that Mr. Clark would have anything to do with this. It's just unthinkable."

He left the room. Once again, I immediately forgot to be aloof and disinterested.

"Do you think that he really just happened to remember that argument, or that he 'just happened' on purpose?"

"I wonder..." Shizuru murmured. She didn't say it like she was really thinking it over, but in her teasing, I've-got-a-secret voice.

"Wait--Shizuru, you already _know_, don't you?"

"I don't 'know.' I do suspect, though. It's a fairly commonplace problem, and I think Reito will be feeling a bit embarrassed over calling me in."

"Embarrassment is good for a guy like that," I maintained. I was going to go on to ask what she actually thought the solution was--if she'd actually tell me--but didn't get the chance because Vamberry came back.

"If you'd please come with me, ladies? Mr. Clark will see you now."

He showed us into the most Dickensian room yet, an office paneled in dark wood with shelves that sagged slightly under age as much as the weight of books, with curtains and carpet fading from the sunlight. Clark himself proved to be a rotund man in his forties with a smooth-skinned, fleshy face, pince-nez perched on his nose. He looked like a smiling elf, just balanced on the line between the genial and the grotesque.

"Please, ladies, do come in," he indicated with a wave of his hand. "I'm Jeremiah Clark, the junior partner of Vamberry and Son. I am so sorry that you've had to break such sad news; it can't be easy for you." He looked over at Vamberry. "Arthur, perhaps you should take the rest of the day off? Your mother..."

Vamberry nodded.

"I understand; thank you."

He stepped out, closing the door behind him. It was a heavy, thick door, and I could see how an argument from the other side might not be clearly heard. With the young man out of the way, Clark turned to us.

"Now, Miss Viola, Miss Kuga, I understand from what Arthur has told me that you represent the police?" he said even as he ushered us to what were apparently the client chairs. We sat; the red cushions had faded nearly to pink but were still comfortable, echoing the general theme of the office.

"We're working with Chief Inspector Kanzaki," Shizuru told him.

"I see." He settled into his own chair and steepled his short, spatulate fingers. "In that case, I feel it would be appropriate to tell you all that I can. This happened last night and at our own warehouse, Arthur said?"

"Yes. Do you know why Mr. Vamberry might have been there?"

Clark shook his head.

"No, I can't imagine. Wilson almost never visited the warehouse, particularly not since he brought Arthur into the business three years ago."

"I've been wondering about that," I spoke up. "This firm is called Vamberry and Son, but you're the junior partner and Arthur Vamberry is a clerk." That had been bugging me ever since we'd gotten here.

"I think that the late Mr. Wilson Vamberry was the 'son' in the firm's name," Shizuru said.

"That's right, Miss Viola. The business was started by his father, Edmund Vamberry, in 1843."

Oh, well. At least that explained the way the office looked. I tried not to look too embarrassed when I said, "I see. Thank you."

"Natsuki makes a good point, however. Would you mind explaining how you became a partner in the firm?"

"Not at all. Vamberry and Son is a respected name, but five years ago it had suffered some financial reverses. At the time I had my own, much smaller concern and was looking to expand, while Wilson was looking for capital. I bought in, gaining access to the Vamberry name and reputation, while my investment helped the business work through its rough patch. It worked out quite well for all of us." He paused, then added, "I suppose that Arthur will step into Wilson's shoes now."

"So it was an amicable partnership between you, then?"

Clark nodded, his head bobbing up and down as if it were on a spring.

"Oh yes, yes, quite amicable. We rubbed along quite well together; indeed, Wilson rubbed along quite well with everyone. He was that sort of man, easygoing and open-natured. Which is not to say that we didn't disagree from time to time in the ordinary way of things as men will, but never with rancor or dislike."

"Not even yesterday?"

Clark flinched a little in his chair. Shizuru had said it easily, almost casually, without changing her sympathetic smile, but her question had struck home as sharply as if she'd openly challenged him, which would have been my way of handling it. "You catch more flies with honey" was never my motto, but Shizuru seemed to make it work for her.

"You heard about--? Ah, Arthur would have told you, of course." He paused, drumming his fingers on the desktop, then appeared to come to a decision. "Very well, but you understand that this is a private matter. I'm telling you because of the circumstances, but I expect it to be kept in confidence."

"That depends on whether or not it has any bearing on the murder. I can say that we have no interest in prying into private matters"--wait, wasn't that the entire point of the job?--"and that we will treat any information with the greatest possible discretion."

"Very well, I understand that, even if I cannot like it." Clark paused, as if convincing himself that he really should talk, then plunged on. "The truth is, it was Arthur that we discussed. As Miss Kuga noted, he's been working here in a clerk's capacity. Wilson wanted him to ease into the business from the ground up. Over the last couple of months, though, he'd been changing his mind. Perhaps Arthur was becoming impatient and pressing him, but that may be doing the young man an injustice. Wilson may just have been changing his perspective with the passing years."

"And you objected to this?"

"Yesterday, Wilson announced his intention to take Arthur into the firm as a full partner. To explain more fully, I own a one-quarter interest in Vamberry and Son, Ltd. and Wilson owned the rest. He proposed to divide his interest with Arthur, which would mean that each would own three-eighths. I admit that I disliked the idea of suddenly being junior to a man whom I did not think was ready for the responsibility of management. I was further annoyed because I had been promised the opportunity to buy in for a greater share if things worked out, and instead this was what happened."

He sighed, then continued.

"Blood will come first, I suppose, when all is said and done. Had I a son, I might better understand his position. And now, of course, it will all come to Arthur, his father's entire share."

"I see. Thank you, Mr. Clark; I know it can't be comfortable to discuss these feelings about the man who is your new senior partner."

He nodded.

"I'm glad you understand."

He reached for an inlaid wooden box and removed a cigarette.

"Would the smell of smoke offend you ladies?"

"Not at all," I answered before Shizuru could. "If you don't mind, I'll indulge as well." I took out my cigarette case and struck a vesta. Shizuru wrinkled her nose as the smoke rose in twin curls from Clark's lips and mine. I felt a little guilty about it, but damn it, I hadn't had a smoke all morning.

"What can you tell me about the warehouse watchman, Mr. Clark?"

"Adonal Fulke? A reliable fellow. Former worker for the firm who had a nasty accident."

"He may have had another. He's missing."

Clark's eyes widened slightly.

"Missing? Fulke?"

"When Mr. MacLeod arrived for work this morning, he found Mr. Vamberry dead and no sign of the watchman."

"Then you believe he...no! I can't accept that. Fulke isn't a killer."

The case seemed to be just full of people who believed that other people couldn't possibly be guilty.

"There are a number of possibilities," Shizuru said.

"Then one of the others must be true. The idea that Fulke would rob--"

"Oh, it wasn't a matter of robbery. Mr. Vamberry's valuables were still on his body."

"Well, then! You see?"

"Why is it you have such faith is Mr. Fulke?" Shizuru pressed.

"He's a reliable employee. In truth, he was almost pathetically grateful that we kept him on. Ridiculous, of course; you don't turn your back on a good worker just because of a bit of bad luck."

He said that, but the truth was that most firms would have let Fulke go without a second thought. I could see why Fulke would be grateful.

"Do you know if he had a family?" Shizuru asked.

"A family? No, I haven't any idea." He tapped ash from his cigarette into a cut-glass tray. "As you might expect, we didn't interact socially."

"No, I suppose that you wouldn't."

Abruptly, Shizuru rose, causing Clark to bob politely out of his chair.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Clark. That will be all, although I am certain that Chief Inspector Kanzaki will be by to take a further statement."

"I hope that I've been of some help."

"Perhaps," she said enigmatically, "but it's a long road to the truth." She glanced in my direction. "Are you coming, Natsuki?" I scrambled to my feet and stubbed out the half-finished cigarette, half-suspecting that Shizuru had arranged the quick exit to get away from the smoke.

In the outer office we nearly collided with the younger Mr. Vamberry, who had his topcoat and bowler on, apparently having decided to take his older but still junior partner's advice and go home. Shizuru approached him at once.

"Mr. Vamberry, if I may ask one more question?"

"Y-yes, of course."

"As clerk I think you should be able to answer this. Was your father or Mr. Clark the better businessman?"

He flinched, which I supposed was answer enough right there, but he rallied and put it in words.

"I suppose it will do no good to conceal it. The transactions that Mr. Clark arranged always seemed to do better. There was a market downturn some years ago which cost Father a great deal of money, and prompted him to take a partner in the first place. There has been a turnaround since, and Father's shipments regularly turned a profit, but Mr. Clark is still able to arrange substantially favorable sales now and again that Father was never able to match."

Shizuru nodded.

"Thank you. I know that couldn't have been easy for you."

"I...appreciate your sympathy."

He showed us out of the office, then hailed a cab. Shizuru smiled with satisfaction as she watched him go.

"You look happy."

"Shouldn't I be? The case is concluded."

I did a classic double-take, like a music-hall comedian.

"Wait. What?"

"Well, from my point of view it is. Reito will have to dig up the evidence to prove it in court, of course, but police manpower is better suited to that work anyway, and it makes him feel useful."

"So, you know who killed Vamberry? And why? And what happened to the watchman? And who the men with the wagon were?"

"I believe so, yes, quite probably, and yes."

"And you figured it out from the same stuff I've heard so far?" There was a squeak of incredulity in my voice which, when I noticed it, nearly made me break out in a blush yet again. I'd never met anyone who could make me feel embarrassed so often and with so little apparent effort as Shizuru!

"Natsuki has been by my side this entire time," she pointed out.

"Yes, but, there's no way there was enough--" I sighed, cutting off my patently silly argument. Of course there had been enough information, if Shizuru had figured it out. And just why was I sputtering anyway? This was _her_ job, not mine. If it amused her to drag me along in her wake that was one thing, but why did I care? Sure, I liked mystery stories when I read to relax, but that was fiction. These were real people, and up until now my attitude towards the great bulk of the human race was that I didn't care if they were happy, sad, or fell in a bog and drowned. I sure as hell wasn't moved to empathy by the plight of the Vamberry family or something. So how I felt about the first mystery was turning into a second mystery.

And Shizuru wasn't helping.

"Look, okay, just tell me what's happening."

"_Ara, ara_, is it right of me to spoil Natsuki's fun?"

"Fun?"

"Natsuki could make a game of it, to see if she can deduce the truth on her own before the papers give it away with their stories on the arrest."

"I don't even do that when I read, Shizuru. Half the time I skip to the end and go back."

"Impatience," Shizuru said sadly. "Of course, if Natsuki had been willing to wait before smoking then it would have been easier for her to say that this was not a larger character flaw."

I winced.

"I should have known that I'd pay for that sooner or later."

Shizuru smiled at me.

"But I shall pay for lunch at Mai's to celebrate that display of new wisdom!"

"Sure. Rub it in. Why Mai's, though, and not, say, Simpson's?"

"Natsuki does not want to celebrate our first investigation together at the place where we met?"

"Natsuki can't put mayonnaise on Japanese food," I admitted.

"I wonder if there is a reason why all of Natsuki's addictions are so...aromatic," Shizuru teased, making me blush again. Observation and deduction certainly told her where _my_ buttons were. "Don't worry; I'm going to spend most of the afternoon writing out my report on the case for Reito, so we can have Mrs. Hudson send up some sandwiches at teatime with as much mayonnaise as Natsuki likes."

"I'm going to hold you to that," I said, and Shizuru got a very odd look on her face for about the duration of an eyeblink. Having no idea what it was I'd said and figuring that she wouldn't tell me if I asked, I shrugged it off and shouted for a cab.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_A/N: Vamberry and Clark are referred to as "partners" on various occasions, but that's clearly only a colloquialism; anyone with a smattering of knowledge in business organizations law would know that a Victorian partnership would have to be wound up on the death of one partner, hence the reason why I had Clark make the point that it's a corporate entity ("Vamberry and Son, Ltd.") in his conversation._

_I'd also like to say that Natsuki smokes in this story because any woman in the 1890s with her level of Bohemianism and badassery would be very likely to do so, but that isn't it. It's really just so I can make a particular joke (suggested by my friend RadiantBeam) later on in the series. But it gives Shizuru something to needle her about, so it's all good._


	4. Chapter 4

_I have to say _ookini_ to EvanescentAmethyst, who by thinking outside the box when she posted her latest chapter of "Back to Back," let me figure out how I could get this online and posted!_

* * *

"I still say you should have gotten credit for solving the case," I declared. I was sprawled out on our sitting room couch with my feet propped up on one arm of the sofa in a way that would have appalled my mother...or my deportment teacher, or the landlady, come to think of it. While the _Times_ had been sedate in their coverage, the _Star_ had been a bit more susceptible to drama. **"Scotland Yard Smashes Smuggling Ring"** was splashed across the top half of the front page. Kanzaki was lauded throughout the article as having led the heroic investigation that netted the head of the ring that had been using Vamberry and Son as the front for moving thousands of pounds' worth of contraband into the country. "All Mr. Smug did was to follow your directions."

"Now, Natsuki, Reito did more than that. After all, he was the one who went through the books at Vamberry and Son to identify the suspect transactions. And he and his men examined the warehouse carefully to determine precisely what the smugglers had removed, including the difficult work of finding what had genuinely been taken instead of apparently taken, since the smugglers moved things around, like that cask at the murder site." Shizuru sipped her tea.

"Yeah, because you told him to, and a squad of constables can do grunt work a lot easier than you can alone." And because she was a lazy person who'd always get someone else to do that work--_if_ she could trust them to do it right in her place.

"Don't those hard-working police officers deserve praise, then? That evidence was what led to so many arrests and drove the various confessions."

"'Thanks to the inspired efforts of Chief Inspector Reito Kanzaki, the machinations of the criminals in disguising their acts as a common crime of violence were thwarted,'" I read out a particularly choice bit. "Shizuru, how can you sit there with that smile on your face while everything you did runs to his credit?"

"I'm flattered that Natsuki thinks so highly of my work that she springs to my defense."

"No teasing until I've had my first cup of coffee, damn it," I grunted.

"Oh, very well. I knew that Reito would claim the credit because it is part of our arrangement, and I can hardly complain about terms that I agreed to in advance."

"There's a big difference between 'can't complain' and 'happy,' Shizuru."

"True, but I have reason to be happy. For one thing, Reito delivered his cheque and it cleared the bank."

I was about to protest that I'd never heard of a police detective paying an amateur to solve a case, when I realized that I was wrong on two counts. On the one hand, it was rather absurd to expect a professional private inquiry agent to work on a case for no credit _and_ no payment. On the other, in one of the world's most famous detective stories, Poe's "The Purloined Letter," the Prefect of Police _had_ paid Dupin, and paid handsomely, for his solution to the case. Shizuru found enough to tease me about without me handing her engraved invitations.

"So, does the article name the leader of the smugglers? How did Natsuki do in deducing the truth?"

She smiled at me from her armchair and took another drink of her tea.

"Natsuki, as you know very well, didn't have a clue."

Shizuru shook her head.

"But that isn't true. The clues were all there. It was just a matter of drawing the correct conclusions."

"Which obviously I'm not great at. So would you mind walking me through it?"

"_Ara_, if Natsuki wishes. I've already explained about the clue of the bloodstained casks, which lead to the discovery that a large scale operation had taken place."

"Hey, I said it was smuggling," I said defensively. "You told me I was getting ahead of myself."

"Not about that. About Vamberry's keys. They could have been taken either because the criminals needed them to open the loading dock, or because the criminals wanted to disguise the fact that they did _not_ need them. Clark and MacLeod had keys of their own. Arthur Vamberry did not, but might reasonably have taken an opportunity to have his father's key copied, so he could fit with either group. Fulke, of course, did not have his own key.

"If the crime was theft," she continued, "Fulke was the obvious suspect. As the 'inside man' he could open the side door to let the thieves in, and the hours he spent alone in the warehouse gave him ample opportunity to identify the most valuable things to steal. Vamberry, we could assume, visited the warehouse unexpectedly and had to be killed. His keys, though, gave the thieves the chance to use the loading dock and take more. It's a complete scenario, as Natsuki herself suggested."

"But you didn't buy it."

"What good would it do thieves to move goods around to conceal what was stolen? That firmly established that the crime was not a one-time act, and strongly implied that the origin of those goods was something the criminals wanted to conceal."

"They could just have been hiding evidence that there was a robbery."

Shizuru shook her head sadly.

"What?" I protested.

"Natsuki, they didn't bother to hide evidence of a _murder_. If they wanted to conceal that anything had happened at all, they'd have removed Vamberry's body as well."

Damn. That really was stupid of me to miss.

"It was just distantly possible," she continued, "that there was a scheme of long-term pilfering in place, but Arthur Vamberry denied this when he said that there were no unusual losses and that the business was doing well. He could have been lying, but Reito's examination of the records bore him out, and I was already well convinced that it was true."

"Why?"

"Let us consider the facts. We assume that some kind of criminal scheme is being operated out of the Vamberry warehouse, be it smuggling or theft. This demands the connivance of workers at the warehouse in some capacity. We learned that the activities take place at night. That means that Fulke, the watchman, was either part of the scheme or bribed to stay silent."

I groaned, getting it at last.

"Fulke was put in place by Clark," I said. "It wasn't an act of charity to keep him on; he bought the man's loyalty with kindness. On the one hand Fulke would be out on the street, a cripple in need of work, and on the other there's Clark offering a job, security, and probably a little extra on the side. And smuggling's not like theft; grab somebody off the street and they probably wouldn't even figure it's morally a crime, since they're only stealing from the tax man, whom everybody hates."

"Even though every good thing the government does requires tax revenue to operate," Shizuru noted. "Though, of course, so does the waste and misery. It's hard to convince an ordinary citizen who sees their money draining away that the benefits they gain directly and indirectly from, say, well-maintained roads that enable thriving trade supporting a healthy economy and everyone's livelihood, are greater in value than what they pay in taxes."

"You'd have a job of it just to convince me of something like that." I folded the _Star_ over, tossed it on the coffee table, and sat up. If we were going to drag economic theory into this, then I needed caffeine to keep me awake and I hated drinking while lying down. I reached for my cup as Shizuru chuckled.

"But Natsuki illustrates my point precisely! Under the circumstances it would have been very easy for Clark to recruit Fulke. It would only have been a matter of letting men come in at night and remove contraband concealed in among otherwise legitimate orders, a false bottom in a crate under packed wine bottles, a waterproof bag inside a cask of brandy, or the like. The ostensible contents of each shipment were all present and properly accounted for by manifest, and under the label of a requested firm with decades of history."

She pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"In a way, the scheme was even more clever than I gave it credit for. Reito found out that instead of simply taking goods out, they actually replaced them. A crate containing sixteen bottles of wine with a false bottom would be replaced in the warehouse by an otherwise identical crate containing identical wine. In this way, MacLeod and the day workers would never notice anything amiss with the warehouse inventory. The night of the murder, of course, they had to act without such preparations since they weren't given time, which let Reito find more evidence than he otherwise might have."

"So that was it? You figured Fulke had to be guilty and he led back to Clark?"

"That was the starting point. What Vamberry and Clark told us about the financial health of the company confirmed it."

"That Clark's investments were making more money?"

"Indeed. It wasn't that his capital had let the firm turn things around or that market conditions had changed. Vamberry's deals were still losing money, but the profits from the smuggling enterprise were being run back through the business to justify their existence."

This was one that I did understand. A big problem with any illegal operation was figuring out a way to hide the fact that you'd suddenly come into large sums of money. Clark had run a chunk of his smuggling profits back through Vamberry and Son to "launder" them, justifying his growing wealth. It had, as a side effect, brought prosperity to his innocent partner, whose respectable but weak business provided perfect cover for the crime.

"Until Vamberry grew too curious," Shizuru said, continuing from her last words and, ironically, my thoughts as well. "Of course, Clark told a complete farrago of lies about the subject of their argument. Vamberry probably was intending to bring his son into the firm, but they were actually arguing about the fact that Vamberry had finally realized that something wasn't adding up in the business."

"How did you deduce that?"

She blinked at me.

"I didn't. It was in his confession." She pointed at the paper.

"You read it already?"

"Natsuki is a sleepyhead; she should not stay up so late at night if she wants to be the first to read the morning papers."

"More likely all that tea keeps you up without sleep all day."

"Perhaps," she agreed without changing her smile one bit.

"So do you believe it?"

"How?"

"The part about Fulke being the one to kill Vamberry. For myself, I figure he's just trying to weasel out of a trip to the gallows."

"Perhaps," she said again.

"Wait, Shizuru, you believe him?"

"Do you remember what the beggar said? A man arrived alone--that would be either Vamberry or Clark. The wagon came later. It's possible that Vamberry arrived, and was killed by Fulke when he started to poke around. Though lame, Fulke was a strong worker, and he had a suitable weapon at hand at all times in his cane, which was a leaded stick in case of thieves. On the other hand, Clark might have gotten there earlier, or have specifically ordered the murder. At the very least, he'll do a long stretch of prison time."

"It's better than Fulke got." According to the story in the _Star_, he'd been knifed by one of the smugglers and tossed into the Thames so he couldn't talk to the police. Since he'd been the one man the police were guaranteed to want to speak with, the precaution made sense enough. Or maybe the paper was just making up stories and Fulke had run off. Hard to prove murder without a body, and if one of the smugglers had told that story it wasn't likely to be the one who actually put the knife into him, but an accusation from someone else seeking leniency. Nothing like honor among thieves. "Damn, that just bugs me," I decided after thinking all that through.

"Oh? What does?" Shizuru asked, recognizing that there was a gap between my complaint and the last thing I'd said before it.

"Fulke. Not knowing. Is he off running somewhere, trying to stay one jump ahead of the law? Or is he cowering in some dockside cellar, hiding out? Or getting nibbled on by the fish in the river after all? The case is closed, but we don't have the answers!"

Shizuru giggled, politely covering her lips with her hand.

"Natsuki, that really does happen more often than not. It isn't possible to completely reconstruct everything in any but the most limited cases."

"Well, it should be," I declared with a complete lack of logic.

"_Ara_, I will try to do better for Natsuki in the future."

"You know, if we're still here when Christmas rolls around, I'm going to get you some second-person pronouns as a gift. Why don't you just call me 'you'?"

"Because Natsuki is very cute when I tease her!"

_Cute_. Puppies are cute. Fluffy bunnies and baby chicks are cute. I'm a lot of things, some of which don't go well in polite company, but cute? Not bloody likely. God, I hoped not, at least. _Cute_.

Maybe because she could see how damn mortified I was, she gave me one. Or two, depending on how I was counting.

"Was there anything else about the case that you would like me to explain?"

I shook my head.

"No, I think I've pretty well got it. But thank you for spelling it out at last." As a riddle, I'd failed miserably at solving it, and even after the solution came out in the papers I'd have had it gnawing at the back of my head for the next week without knowing how Shizuru had managed it.

She shook her head.

"No, I...enjoyed it. To show someone else what I do and share my work with them. So, _ookini_, Natsuki."

"Okay knee? What does that mean?" Yeah, okay, that kind of blew the moment, but I really didn't know what she'd just said.

And...I wasn't sure how comfortable I was with the idea. I didn't have a lot of friends, and none of them that I could really call close.

"_Ookini_. It means, thank you."

"What language is that?"

"Japanese, of course."

My Japanese is horrible. My mother mostly used English with me while I was growing up in Germany, and while I've kept up my German even after coming here, my Japanese is basically only good enough for ordering off the untranslated side of menus. Even so, I thought I knew something as basic as "thank you."

My confusion obviously showed, because Shizuru smiled at me.

"My mother is from Kyoto, so when she taught me her native language, she did so in that dialect. English is my fourth language, so I backslide sometimes."

"Oh, I see." Then I blinked. "Wait, how many languages do you speak?"

"Five. Italian, Japanese, French, English, and Russian. Father was a diplomat, so he knew many languages, and always praised the value of learning more."

"I guess you took his advice."

"Oh, yes. It's proven very useful in my line of work."

"I can see how that would be."

"Perhaps if I need to translate from German, Natsuki could help me? If she did not find this time assisting me to be troublesome...?"

"N-no, it's all right." Wait--how had she known that I spoke German? I had to start paying more attention. Now that I knew what Shizuru was capable of, my secrets were more at risk than I'd even thought when I'd first met her. A stray word or two and the whole story might unfold for her.

Though a little voice whispered insistently to me: would that necessarily be a bad thing?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_A/N: Like so many other writers of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, I drew the idea of this story (as I did for my own _Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century_ fanfic, "The Disappearance of the Cutter Alicia") from the undeveloped cases Watson refers to offhandedly in various tales. "Vamberry the wine merchant" was referenced in "The Musgrave Ritual."_

I had to admit that I was worried at first that this story did not include a dramatic confrontation between Shizuru and the killer. Unfortunately, the nature of the crime as I'd laid it out meant that to find the necessary evidence, it would be necessary to root through the warehouse contents, shipping manifests, and company financial records: grunt work done by the police before any arrests are made. And Reito would hardly allow Shizuru to be "in on the kill" after all that police work. I console myself with the knowledge that such endings are not unknown in the Canon, after all: "The Five Orange Pips," "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge," "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb," "The 'Gloria Scott,'" and "The Resident Patient" among them. Still, just because it works for Conan Doyle doesn't necessarily mean it works for me, so don't expect it to become a pattern in future stories in this series.

Extra thanks must go to my wife, Tarma Hartley, who served as beta reader for this story. Thanks, honey!

I like the fact that in this story, I can include the bits of Shizuru's Kyoto-ben which the fandom typically leaves untranslated...since the characters are actually speaking English, not Japanese, when she says a word in Japanese, it would naturally be narrated as what she actually said.

One thing I don't_ like that I couldn't include a cool action scene for Natsuki! We'll just have to change that next time, when a clue to Natsuki's past and a haunting apparition driving a retired military man to lunacy take the pair to Dartmoor...  
_


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